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In order to realise the energy transition towards a more sustainable, inclusive and just energy market, the traditional model of the electricity market, with big corporations producing electricity and passive consumers at the receiving end, is changing. These changes also require the adaptation of the existing legal framework to new market realities. In this regard, peer-to-peer (P2P) electricity trading has emerged as one mode to enable this transition. The International Renewable Energy Agency has defined the P2P model as “creat[ing] an online marketplace where prosumers and consumers can trade electricity, without an intermediary, at their agreed price”. This new innovation poses technical challenges to the market and also requires changes in the underlying regulatory framework of these markets. More concretely, the fields of consumer (protection) law, contract law, platform liability, data law, competition, and property law need to be revised in order to facilitate the innovation. The purpose of this contribution is to examine which legal obstacles P2P trading encounters. The article will start with some general reflections on these hurdles, followed by a specific focus on energy law in two Member States, Germany and the Netherlands.

Full Text, Thesis (PhD Doctorate), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), School of Law, Arts, Education and Law, This thesis argues that the legal ordering of the natural environment represents a culturally contingent 'order of things'. Within this process of categorisation, Nature is constructed as an 'other' to the human subject. This opposition allows nature to be conceived as either an object of control, as found in property law, or as a wilderness to be preserved apart from human society. This latter view is implicit to the principles informing early environmental laws for the protection of natural heritage in international law and within Australia. More recently, this distinctively western legal ordering has been challenged to be more culturally inclusive and to include concepts that incorporate human interaction with the natural environment. In making this argument, the thesis adopts a theoretical framework derived from Foucault's 'Order of Things'. Modem western understanding of the natural environment is directly informed by western science. Scientific discourses, with origins in the Enlightenment, have been extremely influential in determining the legal ordering of the natural environment. In this context, the thesis provides an overview of the conceptual shift from a pre-scientific, organic conception of the relationship between people and nature to a people/nature dichotomy that persists as the nature/culture meta-narrative in modern society. The rise of a more holistic conception of the natural environment, based in ecological principles, has only partially displaced the latter view. The thesis also examines the manner in which property law constitutes the 'proper' order of the natural world within western culture. The bundle of rights concept, implicit to modern conceptions of property, finds resonances in western scientific understanding of the natural world. In particular, property law replicates the subject /object distinction that is central to modern western thought. The positing of nature as an object of control through the property relationship has been a

This thesis argues that the legal ordering of the natural environment represents a culturally contingent 'order of things'. Within this process of categorisation, Nature is constructed as an 'other' to the human subject. This opposition allows nature to be conceived as either an object of control, as found in property law, or as a wilderness to be preserved apart from human society. This latter view is implicit to the principles informing early environmental laws for the protection of natural heritage in international law and within Australia. More recently, this distinctively western legal ordering has been challenged to be more culturally inclusive and to include concepts that incorporate human interaction with the natural environment. In making this argument, the thesis adopts a theoretical framework derived from Foucault's 'Order of Things'. Modem western understanding of the natural environment is directly informed by western science. Scientific discourses, with origins in the Enlightenment, have been extremely influential in determining the legal ordering of the natural environment. In this context, the thesis provides an overview of the conceptual shift from a pre-scientific, organic conception of the relationship between people and nature to a people/nature dichotomy that persists as the nature/culture meta-narrative in modern society. The rise of a more holistic conception of the natural environment, based in ecological principles, has only partially displaced the latter view. The thesis also examines the manner in which property law constitutes the 'proper' order of the natural world within western culture. The bundle of rights concept, implicit to modern conceptions of property, finds resonances in western scientific understanding of the natural world. In particular, property law replicates the subject /object distinction that is central to modern western thought. The positing of nature as an object of control through the property relationship has been a, Thesis (PhD Doctorate), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), School of Law, Arts, Education and Law, Full Text

Environmental water governance is a highly contested space in which the legitimacy of institutional and legal models for water managing relies heavily, but indirectly, upon the effectiveness of community engagement. Accordingly, this article explores the relationship between legitimacy and participatory forms of decision-making in relation to public institutions with responsibility for environmental water governance in Australia. This examination explores the role that law and systems theory, working as transdisciplinary, theoretically informed praxis, can bring to an understanding of socio-ecological systems for environmental water governance. The Olifants River case study in South Africa provides a counterpoint to the investigation of environmental water institutions in the Murray–Darling Basin in Australia. As a grounded analysis of emergent forms of community engagement, the South African model illustrates how systemic affordances can introduce greater flexibility and choice, and thereby enhance the legitimacy of environmental water governance.

Water governance has emerged as a field of research endeavour in response to failures of current and historical management approaches to adequately address persistent decline in ecological health of many river catchments and pressures on associated communities. Attention to situational framing is a key aspect of emerging approaches to water governance research, including innovations that build capacity and confidence to experiment with approaches capable of transforming situations usefully framed as ‘wicked’. Despite international investment in water governance research, a national research agenda on water governance was lacking in Australia in the late 2000s as were mechanisms to build the capacity of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research and collaborative policy practice. Through a two-year Water Governance Research Initiative (WGRI), we designed and facilitated the development of a community of conversation between researchers concerned with the dynamics of human-ecological systems from the natural sciences, humanities, social sciences, policy, economics, law and philosophy. The WGRI was designed as a learning system, with the intention that it would provide opportunities for conversations, learning and reflection to emerge. In this paper we outline the starting conditions and design of the WGRI, critically reflect on new narratives that arose from this initiative, and evaluate its effectiveness as a boundary organisation that contributed to knowledge co-production in water governance. Our findings point to the importance of investment in institutions that can act as integrative and facilitative governance mechanisms, to build capacity to work with and between research, policy, local stakeholders and practitioners.

Environmental water governance is a highly contested space in which the legitimacy of institutional and legal models for water managing relies heavily, but indirectly, upon the effectiveness of community engagement. Accordingly, this article explores the relationship between legitimacy and participatory forms of decision-making in relation to public institutions with responsibility for environmental water governance in Australia. This examination explores the role that law and systems theory, working as transdisciplinary, theoretically informed praxis, can bring to an understanding of socio-ecological systems for environmental water governance. The Olifants River case study in South Africa provides a counterpoint to the investigation of environmental water institutions in the Murray–Darling Basin in Australia. As a grounded analysis of emergent forms of community engagement, the South African model illustrates how systemic affordances can introduce greater flexibility and choice, and thereby enhance the legitimacy of environmental water governance.

Water governance has emerged as a field of research endeavour in response to failures of current and historical management approaches to adequately address persistent decline in ecological health of many river catchments and pressures on associated communities. Attention to situational framing is a key aspect of emerging approaches to water governance research, including innovations that build capacity and confidence to experiment with approaches capable of transforming situations usefully framed as ‘wicked’. Despite international investment in water governance research, a national research agenda on water governance was lacking in Australia in the late 2000s as were mechanisms to build the capacity of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research and collaborative policy practice. Through a two-year Water Governance Research Initiative (WGRI), we designed and facilitated the development of a community of conversation between researchers concerned with the dynamics of human-ecological systems from the natural sciences, humanities, social sciences, policy, economics, law and philosophy. The WGRI was designed as a learning system, with the intention that it would provide opportunities for conversations, learning and reflection to emerge. In this paper we outline the starting conditions and design of the WGRI, critically reflect on new narratives that arose from this initiative, and evaluate its effectiveness as a boundary organisation that contributed to knowledge co-production in water governance. Our findings point to the importance of investment in institutions that can act as integrative and facilitative governance mechanisms, to build capacity to work with and between research, policy, local stakeholders and practitioners.